Exploring the addition of Landsat 8 thermal band in land-cover mapping

One focus of remote-sensing studies is obtaining highly accurate land-cover maps, which is essential for quantifying and monitoring changes in the environment. However, thermal data, which can provide auxiliary information, is often ignored in land-cover classification. In this study we compare the performance of different remote-sensing feature combinations with and without the Landsat 8 thermal band (band 10). The results show that overall the thermal feature had a positive effect on mapping land cover. A combination of spectral features, indices and the thermal feature maximized the improvement in accuracy. The proposed classifier was applied to map land cover in an area in Egypt. The thermal feature significantly reduced the confusion between cropland and wetland. The improvement in accuracy obtained by adding the thermal feature was analysed in a time series spanning 1 year. We found that the thermal feature improved the classification accuracy when temperature variations occurred among the different land-cover types. The effect of the thermal feature was also influenced by the land cover; in cloudless conditions, warmer weather can enhance the accuracy improvement of the thermal feature.